Temporary Residence Card Serbia: Options for TRC and How to Apply

Quick facts

• The card is a biometric document, the size and shape of an ID card.
• Two versions exist: the temporary residence permit, and the single permit for residence and work.
• The ground you apply on decides which of the two you get.
• A note printed on the card says whether you have the right to work in Serbia.
• The card gives a lawful stay past 90 days, a work right on many grounds, and time that counts toward permanent residence.
• It can be issued for up to three years, counted from the day the application goes in.
• Fees: 430 dinars (~3.5 EUR) for the application, then 23,450 dinars (~200 EUR) on approval, or 22,770 dinars (~194 EUR) for the single permit.
• The decision deadline is 30 days, and 15 days where the single permit is involved.
• Your passport has to stay valid three months longer than the period you ask for.

Two cards, and the ground decides which one you get

Both permits are issued as biometric cards. Guides that still describe a sticker in the passport are out of date. The card proves who you are and your status here, and it lets you use an electronic signature the way a Serbian citizen can.

Which card you receive is not a choice you make on the form. It follows from the ground you apply on, and that is the first thing to settle when you look at how temporary residence in Serbia works, because it sets the filing route, the fee and the deadline.

Apply on an employment ground and you get the single permit, called jedinstvena dozvola in Serbian. It covers residence and work in one document. Applications on these grounds are electronic only. We file them for you, and an employer can file for a member of staff.

Apply on any other ground and you get the temporary residence permit. That one can be filed electronically or in person, and an application for a child is always made in person by the parent or guardian.

The temporary residence permit is not automatically a permit to work. Some grounds carry free access to the labour market and some do not. The card itself is the answer: the note printed on it records whether you may work without a single permit. If you are weighing up which residence permit fits your situation, that note is the practical difference between the two documents.

The grounds you can apply on

Serbian law sets out the grounds and you have to fit one. There is no general category for people who simply want to live here.

• Employment. An employment contract, self-employment, a posted worker, movement inside a company, an independent professional, training and development. These produce the single permit. Accredited journalists, volunteers and audiovisual production are employment reasons too, but they produce the ordinary card.
• Education. Studying, schooling, learning Serbian, exchange schemes, scientific research, and training for a new occupation.
• Family reunification. Marriage or a common-law union with a Serbian citizen or a resident foreigner, and kinship with either.
• Property ownership. Owning a home here is a ground in its own right, which is why buying property in Serbia and residence are often planned together.
• Investor, start-up, talent and Serbian origin. Four special categories, each with its own entry and renewal test.
• Independent stay, religious service, and medical treatment or care.

Self-employment is the route most remote workers take. Registering a company or working as an entrepreneur puts you on the business register, and the register entry is what the ground rests on.

The four special categories deserve a closer look. The first card is short, and the renewal asks for something you did not have to show at the start. The investor category opens with at least 50,000 euros held in an account at a bank in Serbia.

How long the card lasts, and when the clock starts

A card can be issued for up to three years and renewed for the same period. Three years is a ceiling, not an entitlement: the authority sets the period against your ground and your documents, and first cards are often shorter. The period runs from the day the application is submitted, not from the day the card is printed, so a slow decision eats into the card you collect.

One rule catches people out every year. Your passport must be valid for at least three months longer than the period you ask for. If it is not, that alone is a listed ground for refusal. Renew the passport first, then apply for the longest period it can carry.

Serbia TRC card benefits

TRC is the short name many foreigners use for the temporary residence card. The benefits fall into two groups. Some are rights the law attaches to your residence. Others are practical things that get easier once you hold a Serbian document with a registration number on it.

• A lawful stay past 90 days. A visitor may stay 90 days in any 180, and it helps to know how that 90 day limit is counted before you plan around it. With the card you live here for the whole period printed on it, up to three years, and you can renew it.
• The right to work, on many grounds. The single permit covers work by definition, and founders usually reach it through residence by company formation. Several other grounds carry a work right too. The table below shows which.
• A foreigner registration number. This number identifies you to a bank, an employer and the tax office. You need it for almost every contract and filing in Serbia.
• Banking as a resident. Under the Law on Payment Services, a bank must open a payment account with basic services for a person who has legal residence in Serbia and no account yet. After one year here on a residence permit, the Law on Foreign Exchange Operations treats you as a resident, and your bank changes your non-resident account to a resident one.
• Public health insurance when you work. If you are employed or self-employed in Serbia, health contributions are paid on your income and you are insured in the public system. A spouse with no insurance of their own and children under 18 are covered through you.
• Your family can join you. Your spouse and children can apply on family reunification, with your residence as the basis. If the wedding is still ahead of you, our guide to marriage in Serbia for foreigners explains that step first.
• Time toward permanent residence. Three years of continuous temporary residence open permanent residence, and the Serbian citizenship route starts after that. Continuous allows absences of up to 10 months in total, or six months at once.

The work right is the benefit people get wrong most often, because it depends on the ground and not on the card.

What the card does not give you

Three limits are worth knowing before you plan around the card.

• It is not a Schengen or EU permit. Serbia is not in the European Union or the Schengen area, so the card does not let you travel there without a visa. If your passport needs a Schengen visa, you still need one. What changes is that, as a resident, you can apply at the embassies in Belgrade. The German embassy, for example, asks that your Serbian residence permit stays valid for at least one month after your planned return.
• It is not an open work permit. A single permit is tied to the employer or business it was issued for. A change of employer needs approval first.
• It is not permanent, and it is not citizenship. The card ends when its date passes or when the ground behind it ends. It gives you no Serbian passport.

Which of these benefits you get depends on the ground you apply on. We check that with you before anything is filed, so the card you receive does what you need it to do.

What the application asks for

Every ground shares a core set of documents, and then adds its own.

• A valid passport, good for at least three months beyond the residence period you ask for
• A photograph, and two colour photos 35x45mm if the application is made in person
• A lease or a signed statement from the landlord confirming your address in Serbia
• Proof that you can support yourself for the period you are asking for
• Health insurance valid in Serbia
• The documents that prove your specific ground
• Court translations of every document issued outside Serbia

Proof of means of support usually means a bank statement from an account in Serbia showing at least the Serbian minimum salary for the year of the application. A salary certificate, a contract, proof of pension payments, or a certified guarantee from a person or company here can serve instead. Health insurance means a policy valid in Serbia, a European health insurance card where a social security agreement applies, or proof of funds to cover treatment.

Every document issued outside Serbia has to be translated by an authorised court translator, and statements you give as evidence have to be certified by a notary. This is where most of the calendar goes, not in the decision, so it is the part worth starting early.

You also need a registered address here, supported by a lease or a signed statement from the landlord. Foreigners register their address on arrival, the step people know as the white card.

Fees for the temporary residence card

The fees are set by the Law on Republic Administrative Taxes. They are adjusted every year, so we confirm the current amount before anything is paid.

Citizens of North Macedonia, Mongolia, Cyprus and Belarus pay only the application fee. Students and government scholarship holders, religious officials in service here, and people brought in by registered humanitarian organisations are exempt from the residence fee.

If you needed a long stay visa D to enter, the application has to go in during the visa's validity and on the same ground the visa was issued on. You cannot enter on one ground and switch to another after arrival.

Once the conditions are met you attend in person once, to give fingerprints and a photograph. You are then issued a certificate of the started procedure carrying your foreigner registration number. That number is what a bank, an employer or a tax office asks for while the card is produced. We arrange the appointment and tell you what to bring.

Serbia TRC card processing time

The legal deadline is short: 30 days for a temporary residence permit and 15 days for a single permit. The time from your first document to the card in your hand is longer, because the deadline covers only one stage out of five. Knowing which stage you are in tells you who is holding the clock.

When the 30 or 15 days start

The deadline runs from a complete application, not from the day you first file. If a document is missing or in the wrong form, the authority asks for it and the deadline waits for the answer. One missing translation can add more time than the whole decision stage. This is why we check the file against the ground before it goes in.

The single permit has a second clock inside the first. The National Employment Service has 10 days to assess the work side of the application, and the ministry decides within its 15 days.

What makes the card take longer

• Foreign documents that are not ready. Every document issued outside Serbia needs a court translation, and many need an apostille from the country that issued them.
• A passport that is too short. It must be valid three months longer than the period you ask for. A new passport takes longer than any stage in the table.
• The wrong ground. An application on a ground your documents do not support is refused, and you start again.
• A visa D on a different ground. The residence application must use the same ground as the visa.
• The labour market test. An employment contract with a Serbian employer goes through this check before the permit is decided.

What you can do while you wait

Waiting does not cost you residence time or legal status. The period on the card is counted from the day the application was submitted, so the weeks of processing are already inside it. A timely application also lets you stay in Serbia until the procedure ends.

After your fingerprints are taken, you receive the certificate of the started procedure with your foreigner registration number. A bank, an employer and the tax office work from that number, so you do not need the plastic card to start. We track each stage for you and tell you as soon as the card is ready to collect.

Renewing the card before it expires

A renewal is filed no earlier than three months before the card expires and no later than the day it expires. Inside that window the application is timely, and a timely application lets you stay lawfully until the procedure ends, even past the date on the card. The new period runs from the day after the old one ended, so nothing is lost. Miss the expiry date and there is no renewal to file: you start again, and the continuous residence you were building is broken.

Two other duties sit on the holder. If the reason your residence was granted comes to an end, tell the authority rather than wait for the card to run out. If the card is lost, report it without delay: it is declared invalid, the ministry publishes that, and a replacement is issued. Holders of the single permit can also ask to change employer or work for more than one, which the old two-permit system did not allow.

After three years: permanent residence

Three years of continuous temporary residence opens the door to permanent residence, which does not expire and does not have to be renewed. Citizenship comes later, and only after that. This is why the ground you pick at the start matters more than it looks: every year on a card renewed on time counts toward the three, and a gap resets the count.

How we handle temporary residence applications

Start in Serbia is a law consultancy in Belgrade. We run residence applications for foreigners, from the first check of which ground fits to the card in your hand.

Most of the difficulty here is not the decision. It is choosing a ground that will still hold at renewal, getting every foreign document translated and certified in the right form, filing inside the window, and answering the authority when it asks for more. We prepare and file the application, deal with the authority throughout, and handle the renewal when it comes round.

If you are not sure which ground applies to you, tell us about your situation and we will tell you what it needs.

Frequently asked questions

Does the card let me work in Serbia?
Look at the note printed on it, which records whether you have the right to work without a separate single permit. If you applied on an employment ground you hold the single permit, which covers work by definition. On other grounds it varies, so check the note before you sign anything with an employer.

What do I hold between filing and collecting the card?
A certificate of the started procedure, issued after you give your biometric data, carrying your foreigner registration number. Banks, employers and tax offices work from that number. The certificate is not a visa, so if your nationality needs one, re-entering Serbia while the application is pending still requires a valid visa.

What happens if my passport expires before my permit does?
It should not, because the passport has to be valid three months beyond the period you ask for, and a passport that is too short is a listed ground for refusal. Renew it before you apply. If you renew it during the residence period, tell the authority, because the card is tied to the travel document you applied with.

Can I apply from outside Serbia?
If you hold a passport from a visa free country, yes, electronically, and that includes the single permit. If your nationality needs a visa, you first need a long stay visa D, and the application goes in during its validity and on the same ground. Applications for children are always made in person.

Can I travel to Schengen countries with a Serbian TRC?

No. Serbia is not in the Schengen area, so the card does not replace a Schengen visa. If your passport needs one, you still apply for it, but as a resident you can apply at the embassies in Belgrade.